Posts Tagged ‘psychedelics’

Take Action – Missouri Legislature

Monday, March 27th, 2023

Periodically we let you know the progress of various proposed legislation making its way through the Missouri General Assembly and suggest ways for you to contribute your viewpoint to your state Representative and state Senator.

The Missouri General Assembly is the state legislature of the State of Missouri and is composed of two chambers: the House of Representatives and the Senate. The General Assembly is responsible for creating laws for governing the State of Missouri. The Revised Statutes of Missouri (RSMo) are electronically available on this site:  http://revisor.mo.gov/.

You can find your Representative and Senator, and their contact information, by entering your 9-digit zip code here.

The 2023 Regular Session (102nd General Assembly, 1st Regular Session) convened on Wednesday, January 4, 2023, and will end on Friday, May 12, 2023. You can see the House Bills (HB) by clicking here; and the Senate Bills (SB) are listed here.

If you are not a voting resident of Missouri, you can find out about legislation in your own state and write your own state legislators; also, we are looking for volunteers to monitor legislation in Missouri and the states surrounding Missouri — let us know if you’d like to help out.

Check out our handy discussion about How to write to a legislator.

We Urge You To Contact Your Legislators To Express Your Own Viewpoints

We’d like to describe some bills about which we’d particularly like you to contact your legislators. Please write, call or visit to express your viewpoint as an individual or professional, and not as a representative of any organization. Let us know the details and any responses you get. The full text of each bill can be found on the House and Senate Joint Bill Tracking site. Just put the bill number into the search box (e.g. SB123 or HB123).

Four Very Very Bad Bills

HB1154 (Sponsor: Representative Dan Houx, Republican, District 54, Johnson county)

and

SB614 (Sponsor: Senator Holly Thompson Rehder, Republican, District 27, Bollinger, Cape Girardeau, Iron, Madison, Perry, Reynolds and Scott counties)

These bills require the Department of Health and Senior Services, in collaboration with a Missouri university hospital and medical center operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs in Missouri, to research and conduct clinical trials on the efficacy of using psychedelic drugs such as MDMA (Ecstasy), psilocybin, and ketamine, for the treatment of patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, treatment-resistant depression, substance abuse disorders, or who require end-of-life care.

The mythical and debunked theory that a chemical imbalance in the brain causes depression, which launched an antidepressant industry in 1989, is being rephrased today to sell Americans on taking psychedelic drugs for their mental health instead.

In the wake of SSRI antidepressants like Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil having been exposed as being no more effective than a placebo—with a threat to industry profits—psychedelics are being peddled to replace antidepressants and capture a projected $10 billion a year market. But this change in treatment and theories is like switching seats on the Titanic.

The theories behind how psychedelics “work” today remain hype rather than science. We are seeing the same rapturous reception given psychedelics, buoyed by a re-hashed brain chemical theory and claims of a “renaissance” in mental health treatment. It took 30 years for the “chemical-imbalance-in-the-brain-causes-depression” myth to be fully recognized as pseudoscience and dangerously misleading to consumers. We should recognize the trademark signs of this same marketing scam with psychedelics and prevent America from “turning on and tuning out” to these mind-altering drugs before it is too late. 

Read more about this fraud here.


HB1123 (Sponsor: Representative  Mike Stephens, Republican, District 128, Hickory and Polk counties)

This bill establishes the “Dialectical Behavior Therapy Task Force” which shall recommend standards and procedures for certifications in dialectical behavior therapy, and requires health benefit plans to provide coverage for dialectical behavioral services. This bill is similar to SB 397, sponsored by Senator Greg Razer (Democrat, District 7, Jackson county).

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a psychotherapy for people who experience emotions very intensely (so-called “mood disorders”). It’s a type of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is a form of psychotherapy that attempts to modify dysfunctional emotions, behaviors, and thoughts — by evaluating for the person, challenging the person’s behaviors, and getting the person to change those behaviors, often in combination with psychiatric drugs.

While DBT may be advertised as a method to reduce psychiatric drug use, psychopharmacologic interventions are oftentimes considered appropriate adjunctive care.

The real problem is that psychiatrists fraudulently diagnose life’s problems as an “illness”, and stigmatize unwanted behavior or study problems as “diseases.” Psychiatry’s stigmatizing labels, programs and treatments are harmful junk science; their diagnoses of “mental disorders” are a hoax – unscientific, fraudulent and harmful. All psychiatric treatments, not just psychiatric drugs, are dangerous.

Replacing Prozac With LSD Is Like Switching Seats On The Titanic

Monday, November 14th, 2022

Psychedelics are making a $10 billion-a-year comeback, replacing profit-losing antidepressants; with it comes a new wave of misleading, unproven theories that changing brain chemicals can change your mind.

By Jan Eastgate, President CCHR International, August 26, 2022

The mythical and debunked theory that a chemical imbalance in the brain causes depression, which launched an antidepressant industry in 1989, is being rephrased today to sell Americans on taking psychedelic drugs for their mental health instead. In the wake of SSRI antidepressants like Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil having been exposed as being no more effective than a placebo—with a threat to industry profits—psychedelics are being peddled to replace antidepressants and capture a projected $10 billion a year market.[1] But this change in treatment and theories is like switching seats on the Titanic.

The chemical imbalance theory was based on the idea that low levels of the chemical, serotonin, in the brain could be increased by antidepressants to improve depression. A similar theory was marketed in the 1960s and ‘70s to take hallucinogens like LSD—legally and illicitly—before the drug was banned in 1968. Today, psychedelics are referred to as “serotonergic hallucinogens.”[2]

David B. Yaden, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Center for Psychedelic and Conscious Research at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, delivered a presentation on “The Evidence for Psychedelics in Psychiatry” at the American Psychiatric Association (APA) annual convention in May 2022, sharing that “serotonin molecules actually look quite similar to LSD and psilocybin—thus, serotonergic hallucinogens.”[3]

The global antidepressants market was expected to decline 42% from $26.25 billion in 2020 to $15.87 billion in 2021,[4] as the introduction of generic versions of the drugs can crash sales for companies with patents.[5] This is an incentive for a psychedelic revival. And it’s a huge market. IQVia statistics for 2020 show 45 million Americans taking antidepressants. With a treatment failure rate of as much as 46%, there’s a potential market of 20.7 million people encouraged to “turn on, tune  in, and drop out”—the catchphrase for psychedelic drug use in the 1960s—on hallucinogens.

As an August 2022 Slate magazine article on psychedelics reported, pharmaceutical companies are looking to psychedelics as a way to replace costly mental illness prescriptions for what they argue are “ineffective drugs.”[6]

One company promoting psychedelics does so by referring to “the failure rate of traditional drugs” being high…. “Depression and anxiety drugs barely even beat placebos!” And, as such: “It’s time to discover powerful solutions that work.”

Facing profit loss, the psychiatric-pharmaceutical industry now admits their psychotropic drugs are ineffective–no better than placebos. But that is not what consumers were told when the SSRI and follow-up antidepressants were released with promises of workability and a revolution in mental health treatment.

If the industry has lied about the chemical imbalance theory and antidepressant workability since the 1980s, what hype are consumers being fed today about psychedelics?

Media reported that a recent study found that 65% of Americans who are struggling with mental health want access to psychedelics as a treatment. However, the “survey” was conducted for Delic Holdings Corp.—an organization that wants psychedelic-based treatments made accessible to all. Delic acquired Ketamine Wellness Centers (KWC) in November of 2021. Ketamine’s hallucinogenic properties are theorized to be connected to its alleged antidepressant effects, yet even Psychiatric Times reported that its widespread adoption—though not Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved—has “leaped ahead of scientific understanding.” Despite, the lack of science, it purported that “Ketamine may induce alterations in consciousness and personal frameworks similar to those achieved by serotonergic psychedelics….”[7] [Emphasis added]

Today, Delic runs the largest chain of psychedelic mental health clinics in the U.S., operating 13 spuriously named ketamine “wellness” clinics. The company has plans to open an additional 15 clinics in the next 18 months. KWC is approaching 100,000 ketamine treatments and announced a new partnership with the Veterans Administration (VA) in Arizona.

Another biotech company that markets ketamine claims that with its use, “You can re-calibrate the brain during that optimum time of neurogenesis” (development of new brain cells), describing the mind’s alleged state after a ketamine injection.The company has copyrighted its method of psychotherapy—used in conjunction with ketamine—to, as it asserts, “help patients interpret their experiences during the mind-altering state.” And its results are better than placebo, the company further claims!

Evaluate their own experiences? These are subjective alterations of reality. It’s about as scientific as The Imperial-Royal Dream Book, published in the late 1800s and early 1900s, where dreams were arbitrarily interpreted as prophetic; for example, if you dreamed of being married, it was “ominous of death and very unfavorable to the dreamer; it denotes poverty, a prison and misfortunes.” But if you dream of assisting at a wedding, that predicts pleasing news or great success! Then again, dreaming of weeding the garden “signifies that health, happiness and long life will probably be granted to you.”[8] Freud called dream therapy the “the royal road” to the unconscious—part of his works which was criticized as a “triumph of pseudoscience.”[9]

A pseudoscience now expanded to explaining how psychedelics might “work.”

The biotech company is licensing its ketamine protocol to treat alcohol abuse even though ketamine is not approved by the FDA for this use. In a press statement, the company stated, “Along with a 2017 statement from a council of the American Psychiatric Association, this has given practitioners comfort to use it off-label in the US….” [Emphasis added]

Another biotech company that invests in psychedelic research revealed why there will be support for psychiatry’s latest mind-altering drugs, regardless of adverse effects: “[I]nsurance providers are the hottest under the collar for psychedelic therapies, because $10,000 for a magic mushroom treatment is nothing compared to putting someone on Zoloft or an anti-anxiety or an ADHD drug every day and having to pay for those [prescriptions] week after week…But from the insurance perspective, the total lifetime cost for a patient is going to be drastically less than the current psychopharmacological interventions.” [10]

Today’s propaganda surrounding psychedelics smacks of the false assurances made in the 1990s about the chemical imbalance myth and how SSRIs were a revolutionary new treatment to correct the imbalance and improve depression. And in the same way this was done in the 1960s and ‘70s when psychedelics were guaranteed as mental health improvers.

In 1963, Life magazine reported that the “sheer potency [of LSD] has important implications for behavioral science. If such a great deal can happen from such a small source, normal behavior may depend on extremely fine chemical balances.” [11]

The theories behind how psychedelics “work” today remain hype rather than science. Authoritative comments often use words such as “appears” and “suggests” because the theories—like that of the alleged chemical imbalance in the brain—have not been scientifically substantiated. Here is a small example of the explanations:

  • Hallucinogens  are thought to produce their perception-altering effects by acting on neural circuits in the brain that use serotonin.”[12] [Emphasis added] – U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
  • Hallucinogens cause “a temporary chemical imbalance in the brain, which causes hallucinations and other effects such as euphoria.”[13] – Elizabeth Hartney, BSc, MSc, MA, PhD, psychologist, Director of the Centre for Health Leadership and Research at Royal Roads University, Canada.
  • “Psychedelics induce the brain to change transiently in ways that appear to allow a reset to take place and permit alterations in previously ‘stuck’ ways of feeling and thinking about things.”[14] [Emphasis added] – Dr. Jerrold Rosenbaum, Director of the Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics at Massachusetts General Hospital and former psychiatrist-in-chief at MGH
  • Psychedelics “change the structures of neurons themselves,” which “can impact how the brain is wired, and consequently, how we feel, think and behave… scientists now know that depression is not simply the result of a ‘chemical imbalance.’”[15] – David E. Olson, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry; Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Medicine; Center for Neuroscience, University of California, Davis
  • “Scientists aren’t entirely sure why people respond to psychedelics differently, but new research suggests that genetic variations in a serotonin receptor may be a factor.”[16] [Emphasis added] – Healthline

Conflicts of Interest: A Stock in Trade

In September of 2021, Scientific American espoused the benefits of psychedelics in an article titled, “A Renaissance for Psychedelics Could Fill a Long-Standing Treatment Gap for Psychiatric Disorders.” The article was written by Danielle Schlosser and Thomas R. Insel. Both disclosed their conflicts of interest: Schlosser is a psychologist and senior vice president of Compass Pathways, which is conducting clinical trials of psilocybin (hallucinogenic compound found in certain species of mushrooms). Insel is the former director of the U.S. National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH) and consultant to Compass. He neglected to mention that he is also an investor in the company. Compass has already made enough synthetic doses of psilocybin to supply more than 30,000 patients, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.[17]

They wrote that research conducted in the last decade suggests that psilocybin, typically taken in pill form, has the potential to treat substance use disorders, including alcoholism and nicotine addiction, as well as depression.

When “effective,” they added, “psychedelics appear to confer long-term effects, sometimes after a single administration, suggesting that they are not simply symptom-reducing but disease-modifying.”

While that research isn’t conclusive yet, Paul Hutson, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies psilocybin and leads the school’s center for psychedelics research anticipates the FDA will approve psilocybin capsules to treat at least some of these disorders—most likely in the next five years or so. [18]

The current U.S. Administration is also putting together a task force to fast-track therapies such as MDMA (Ecstasy) and psilocybin.[19]

Psychedelics Create Street Drug Abuse

As with the 1960s hallucinogenic rush, when LSD went from the psychiatrist’s couch to the streets, a new study by Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health reports Americans are “turning on, tuning in and dropping out” more than ever. The use of hallucinogenic drugs among teenagers and adults combined rose from 1.7% in 2002 to 2.2% in 2019—now an estimated 5.5 million people in the U.S. ages 12 and older. The rate of LSD use increased overall, but most of all in young adults, ages 18 to 25, who quadrupled their cohort, from 0.9% to 4%, during the 18-year study period. These were just a few of the telling trends that researchers derived from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, published in the journal Addiction.[20]

The dangers are already known:

  • According to NIDA, “The effects of hallucinogens like LSD can be described as drug-induced psychosis—distortion or disorganization of a person’s capacity to recognize reality, think rationally, or communicate with others.” Further, “Use of hallucinogenic drugs also produces tolerance to other drugs in this class, including psilocybin and peyote.” [21]
  • “[Y]ou can have life-changing negative experiences,” Katharine Neill Harris, a drug policy researcher at Rice University in Texas, said.[22]
  • Microdosing LSD or psilocybin is already prevalent and puts people at risk, as it is believed that by taking small doses—perhaps 10% of a standard dose—every few days, some people might experience mental health benefits without the high. But microdosing psilocybin, The New York Times reported, “can be harmful, and there is some evidence that it can damage the heart over time. Recent research also suggests that the positive impacts of microdosing in humans may be largely caused by the placebo effect. Microdosing LSD may have physical risks, too. In a study on rats, microdosing LSD had the opposite effect of a trip; it made the rats display signs of psychiatric illness, like aggression…. Similar to microdosing psilocybin, it may also strain the heart by overworking the neurons around the organ.”
  • “If you’re constantly stimulating these neurons, even with a small dose of these compounds, the neurons just can’t take it,” said David Olson.[23]

Allan Horwitz, Ph.D., in a review published in The Medscape Journal in 2008, wrote: “After a rapturous reception [given SSRIs] upon their introduction in the late 1980s, which persisted until the emergence of uncertainty during the early years of the 21st century, we are now witnessing a rising chorus of cynicism and disbelief about these drugs.”[24]

We are seeing the same rapturous reception given psychedelics, buoyed by a re-hashed brain chemical theory and claims of a “renaissance” in mental health treatment. It took 30 years for the “chemical-imbalance-in-the-brain-causes-depression” myth to be fully recognized as pseudoscience and dangerously misleading to consumers. We should recognize the trademark signs of this same marketing scam with psychedelics and prevent America from “turning on and tuning out” to these mind-altering drugs before it is too late. 

[1] Sonari Glinton, “Big Pharma Is Betting on Psychedelics for Mental Health: Will it Pay Off,” Slate, 18 Aug 2022, https://slate.com/technology/2022/08/psychedelic-drugs-mental-health-compass-pathways.html

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4813425/

[3] “The Recent Resurgence of Psilocybin: Is It Here to Stay?” Psychiatric Times, 22 Aug. 2022, https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/the-recent-resurgence-of-psilocybin-is-it-here-to-stay

[4] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210426005303/en/Global-Antidepressants-Market-Report-2021-COVID-19-Causes-a-Surge-in-Demand-for-Antidepressant-Drugs-as-Mental-Health-Problems-Rise—ResearchAndMarkets.com

[5] https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/pfizer-faces-first-2017-patent-loss-as-pristiq-generics-crash-party

[6] Op. cit., Sonari Glinton, Slate, 18 Aug 2022l

[7] https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/revisiting-hallucinogenic-potential-ketamine

[8] The Imperial-Royal Dream Book (Jones, Printer, John Street, London,) pages 39 and 73

[9] https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/types/dream-analysis;https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/freud-was-a-fraud-a-triumph-of-pseudoscience/

[10] Op. cit., Sonari Glinton, Slate, 18 Aug 2022

[11] Robert Coughlan, “The Chemical Mind-Changers,” Life magazine, 15 Mar. 1963.

[12] “How Do Hallucinogens (LSD, Psilocybin, Peyote, DMT, and Ayahuasca) Affect the Brain and Body?,” National Institute of Drug Abuse, https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/hallucinogens-dissociative-drugs/how-do-hallucinogens-lsd-psilocybin-peyote-dmt-ayahuasca-affect-brain-body

[13] “How Psychedelic or Hallucinogenic Drugs Work,” verywellmind.com, 25 Nov. 2020, https://www.verywellmind.com/what-are-psychedelics-22075

[14] Peter Grinspoon, MD, “Back to the future: Psychedelic drugs in psychiatry,” Harvard Health Publishing, Harvard Medical School, 22 June 2021, https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/back-to-the-future-psychedelic-drugs-in-psychiatry-202106222508

[15] https://theconversation.com/mind-molding-psychedelic-drugs-could-treat-depression-and-other-mental-illnesses-98071

[16] https://www.healthline.com/health-news/people-respond-differently-to-psychedelic-drugs-genetics-could-be-one-reason#Other-factors-affecting-treatment-response

[17] https://www.cchrint.org/2021/08/13/ca-plan-to-legalize-psychedelics-is-dangerous-for-mental-health-patient-lives/, “Shroom-Therapy Startup Edges Toward FDA Approval: The feds have designated Compass Pathways’ experimental psilocybin treatment for depression a ‘breakthrough therapy,’” Bloomberg Businessweek, 6 Jan. 2020, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-07/psychedelic-mushroom-therapy-startup-edges-toward-fda-approval; Danielle Schlosser, Thomas R. Insel, “A Renaissance for Psychedelics Could Fill a Long-Standing Treatment Gap for Psychiatric Disorders.” Scientific American, 14 Sept. 2021, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-renaissance-for-psychedelics-could-fill-a-long-standing-treatment-gap-for-psychiatric-disorders/

[18] Danielle Schlosser, Thomas R. Insel, “A Renaissance for Psychedelics Could Fill a Long-Standing Treatment Gap for Psychiatric Disorders.” Scientific American, 14 Sept. 2021, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-renaissance-for-psychedelics-could-fill-a-long-standing-treatment-gap-for-psychiatric-disorders/

[19] Op. cit., Sonari Glinton, Slate, 18 Aug 2022

[20] Hannah Sparks, “Millions more are tripping on psychedelic drugs than ever before: study,” New York Post: 19 Aug 2022, https://nypost.com/2022/08/19/millions-more-are-tripping-on-psychedelic-drugs-than-ever-before-study/; full study: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.15987

[21] “How Do Hallucinogens (LSD, Psilocybin, Peyote, DMT, and Ayahuasca) Affect the Brain and Body?” National Institute of Drug Abuse, https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/hallucinogens-dissociative-drugs/how-do-hallucinogens-lsd-psilocybin-peyote-dmt-ayahuasca-affect-brain-body

[22] Kat Eschner, “The Promises and Perils of Psychedelic Health Care,” New York Times, 5 Jan. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/well/psychedelic-drugs-mental-health-therapy.html

[23] Ibid.

[24] https://www.cchrint.org/2019/08/05/getting-it-right-about-antidepressants/; “Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Is Medicating a Nation,” Medscape J Med. 2008; 10(5): 121, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2438484/.

Local psychiatrist known for giving medical marijuana cards could lose her license

Monday, October 17th, 2022

Dr. Zinia Thomas, a psychiatrist in St. Louis, Missouri, was arrested September 1, 2022 on felony drug charges for illegally possessing marijuana, which she had allegedly attempted to sell.

Apparently she had also been previously investigated for improperly issuing Missouri medical marijuana cards.

In addition to marijuana, Dr. Thomas also promotes the use of ketamine, a psychedelic anesthetic also called a “date-rape” drug. Basically it knocks you out so you don’t feel so depressed anymore. You don’t feel much of anything, actually, since you’ve just shot up an anesthetic. Psychiatrists pushing ketamine are shameful drug pushers who are making a buck off people’s misfortune.

Psychiatry, in spite of diagnosing cannabis use as a mental disorder, also pushes cannabis as a treatment for mental trauma. In Missouri, “psychiatric disorders” are a top reason that patients are approved for a medical marijuana license.

Medical marijuana sales in Missouri are above $200 million since it went on sale in October 2020. Roughly 17% of approximately 200,000 medical marijuana cards issued in Missouri are for so-called psychiatric disorders, which must be diagnosed by a state-licensed psychiatrist. One popular diagnostic code from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is “Unspecified mental disorder”. Note also that there are 32 diagnostic codes for various mental problems with marijuana use and abuse, including the ever popular “Unspecified cannabis-related disorder”. Notice that a psychiatrist can recommend the issuance of a Missouri medical marijuana card to someone to treat their problems from using marijuana. How convenient is that?

False information published by the Federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration claimed that “19.9 percent of American adults in the United States (45.1 million) have experienced mental illness over the past year.”

This popular statistic, pushed by the psychiatric industry to justify their existence, is completely false or, at best, highly questionable. The apparent epidemic of “mental illness” is because the psychiatric industry, working with the pharmaceutical industry and the Food and Drug Administration, invents new fraudulent disorders for which more drugs can be prescribed; all-encompassing disorders such as the one noted above, “Unspecified mental disorder.” People can have serious problems in life; these are not, however, some unspecified mental illness caused by a deficiency of marijuana.

The psychiatric industry today has jumped on the cannabis bandwagon for several reasons. Psychiatrists are embracing all things marijuana because they are getting so many patients with marijuana-related problems such as addiction and psychosis.

When psychiatric treatments fail and psychotropic drug patents run out, there are usually efforts to resurrect old treatments as “new miracles,” such as psychedelics. There is a hefty body of evidence showing the lack of science behind psychiatry’s diagnostic system that leads to unworkable and potentially damaging treatments including psychedelics. The psychedelic “therapy” industry is predicted to reach $7 billion by 2027, a powerful draw for a therapist without scruples.

Governments keep investing billions of dollars into psychiatry to improve conditions that psychiatrists admit they cannot cure. Promises are repeatedly made to improve the mental health of the country but the opposite has occurred. The rate of mental trauma keeps soaring, and with it, demands for a blank check for more funding. Contact your local, state and federal officials and demand that they stop funding harmful psychiatric “treatments,” and that psychiatry is held accountable for their harm.

Psychiatry’s Dying Industry

Monday, September 6th, 2021

Report On Failed Mental Health Programs

A new resource on failed psychiatric treatment programs serves as advice to policymakers being asked to support and fund a resurgence of psychedelic drug therapies when in the sixties these caused harm and violence in the community.

The mental health watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) has launched its online report and resource about failed mental health programs which are impacting psychiatric policy today. The release of Why Psychiatry Sees Itself as a Dying Industry—A Resource on Its Failures and Critics coincides with California legislators considering passing a law that will legalize possession of psychedelic hallucinogens and promote researching the mind-altering chemicals as treatment for “mental illness.”

A petition that CCHR’s Sacramento chapter posted online opposes this, joining many others concerned about resurrecting psychedelics that were a past failed psychiatric experiment. In California, LSD was also linked to the horrific Charles Manson murders in the 1960s.

It was the street use of and research into LSD in the 60s and 70s that led to Congress shutting down all LSD mind-control research in 1977.

CCHR says resurrecting LSD—a failed and dangerous therapy—to replace current failed treatments shows a fundamental disregard for human life because of the drugs’ mind-altering properties, also borne out by the psychiatric-intelligence community’s past research of LSD, psilocybin and amphetamines. As extensively researched in Tom O’Neill’s book, Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, LSD helped create the mindset of the Charles Manson Family who, after many months of use of the drug, gruesomely murdered nine-month pregnant actress, Sharon Tate and four others in California August 1969.

CCHR’s report highlights similar failed mental treatment programs using a hefty body of evidence showing the lack of science behind psychiatry’s diagnostic system that led to unworkable and potentially damaging treatments, which includes psychedelics. United Nations Special Rapporteur and psychiatrist Dainius P?ras, M.D., recently noted that with psychiatry’s reliance upon biomedical interventions, we shouldn’t be surprised that “global psychiatry is facing a crisis, which to a large extent is a moral crisis, or a crisis of values.”

In October 2020, the World Psychiatric Association issued a Position Statement about improving mental health care, because widespread coercion in psychiatry violates patients’ “rights to liberty; autonomy; freedom from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment….”

CCHR says that when treatments fail and psychotropic drug patents run out, there are usually efforts to resurrect old treatments as “new miracles,” such as electroshock treatment and now psychedelics. The reason for the new market is there’s profit to be made. The psychedelic “therapy” industry is predicted to reach $7 billion by 2027.

CCHR, which was established in 1969, is responsible for over 190 laws that inform and protect consumers about mental health treatment risks. It suggests policymakers and appropriations committees apprise themselves of past psychedelic drug research risks, read CCHR’s report to prevent funding programs that have failed and involve dangerous practices, and base reforms on CCHR’s Mental Health Declaration of Human Rights.

Psychiatry an Industry of Death
Psychiatry an Industry of Death

California Plan To Legalize Psychedelics

Monday, August 16th, 2021

California policy makers are being asked to support the resurgence of a past failed and dangerous psychiatric-psychedelic drug practice that went from a research lab to the couch to the streets, to the CIA and now back again to the lab, to again put patients at risk.

California legislators are considering passing a law, SB 519 that will legalize possession of psychedelic drugs and promote researching the mind-altering chemicals as treatment for “mental illness.”

This bill would make lawful the possession for personal use of psilocybin, psilocyn, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), ibogaine, mescaline, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA).

It stands to reason that for the market to reappear there’s profit to be made. The psychedelic “therapy” industry is predicted to reach $7 billion by 2027. Laws like the proposed California one will help make that target sooner, along with all the horrific side effects of these harmful and addictive drugs.

A petition that Citizens Commission on Human Rights Sacramento posted online opposes the bill, joining many others who disagree with it. CCHR International, the headquarters of which are based in Los Angeles, said the bill is part of a growing concern that psychiatrists’ failure to effectively treat substance abuse, addiction and mental problems can be helped by past failed “therapies.” The bill is dangerous to people’s mental health, given the known risks of these drugs.

Such research being resurrected today demonstrates a fundamental disregard for human life because of the drugs’ mind-altering properties, also borne out by the psychiatric-intelligence community’s past research of LSD, psilocybin and amphetamines.

CCHR suggests California legislators apprise themselves of past psychedelic drug research risks and prevent a re-occurrence of this failed and dangerous practice.

Common Sense May Not Be All That Common

Monday, May 10th, 2021

We found a number of useful definitions for the phrase “common sense.”

– Sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts.
– An ability to reach intelligent conclusions.
– A reliable ability to judge and decide with soundness, prudence, and intelligence.
– The ability to think and behave in a reasonable way and to make good decisions.
– Good sense and sound judgment in practical matters.
– Sound judgment not based on specialized knowledge.
– The basic level of practical knowledge and judgment that we all need to help us live in a reasonable and safe way.
– Agreement with those perceptions, associations and judgments possessed of the generality of mankind. With respect to this definition, some have said that common sense implies something everyone knows; if that is the case, then what appears to be common sense is often common nonsense, given the level of disagreements showing up on current social media.

In Latin, sensus communis means “common feelings of humanity.”

Sometimes the phrase is found hyphenated: “common-sense” — something which reflects common sense, as in “a common-sense approach.”

Discussion

We wondered if it is possible to teach common sense, or if it is an innate (although not always evident) characteristic of humanity.

If anyone can have an instance or episode of common sense, perhaps we should also examine how this ability can be compromised.

In the past, some religious scholars have posited the negative influence of Satan as the mechanism of compromise. Others have attributed common sense, or lack of it, to one’s maturity level.

One place where common sense fails is in superstition. We have discussed superstition previously; it might be helpful to review it here.

We see many scholarly articles whose premise is that psychology and psychiatry are “scientific” and thus not matters of common sense. We tried reading a paper about psychiatry and common sense; frankly, making any sense of it without falling asleep was a challenge. It propagates the idea that “common sense rests on judgments of the probable rather than what we can directly ascertain as true” — which we think, from the definitions above, is directly contrary to the idea that common sense depends on the perception and observation of reality. Perhaps, though, that is precisely where common sense leaves off and superstition begins.

The True Basis For Common Sense

So we come to what we think is the true basis for common sense, which is “obnosis” — the observation of the obvious, on which all good judgment is based.

Observation is not passive, it is very much an active process, involving the closest possible study of what one is observing. Thus we see that the most important thing which hinders or gets in the way of one’s common sense is anything which blocks or hinders close observation. Truth or falsity, while relevant, is not even close in importance to the actual observation of what is there in front of you.

And yes, you can indeed teach someone to observe. You can also rehabilitate this ability in someone whose common sense has been compromised by a too heavy dependence on belief as a replacement for certainty.

One other thing that aids in the exercise of common sense would be the ability to imagine the consequences of one’s actions. This provides a predictive quality so important to good judgment.

How Does Psychiatry Compromise Common Sense?

Having an unobstructed view of the world, as we have just observed, is of paramount importance. This viewpoint, as far as the physical perceptions provided by one’s body goes, depends upon the proper functioning of one’s nerves and the nervous system. Yet the primary “treatments” of psychiatry are drug-based, with neuroleptic (“nerve-seizing”) drugs a chief offender. And lately there is a heavy psychiatric emphasis on psychedelic drugs, known primarily for their interference with such perceptions.

Need we even mention the harm that psychiatric Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) does — a direct attack on the brain, the center of the body’s nerve system.

Can you imagine how these might compromise one’s common sense? There are harmful consequences for psychiatric treatment.

The Bottom Line

A Truly Common Sense Approach would be banning ECT, banning psychiatric drugs, in fact defunding and banning psychiatry.

Contact your local, state, and federal officials and representatives and let them know what you think about this.

In Memory of Common Sense & Courtesy
In Memory of Common Sense & Courtesy

Spirit Has More Than One Meaning

Monday, December 7th, 2020

The English word “spirit” has more than one meaning.

The word derives originally from Latin spiritus, “breath”, from spirare “to blow, breathe”.

One common definition is “a spiritual being.” But there are also these meanings:

— Feeling Lively – a lively or brisk quality in a person or in a person’s actions.
— Élan – vigorous spirit or enthusiasm [from Middle French eslan “rush”].
— The creative, animating or vital principle giving life to physical organisms.

When a spiritual being pervades an area, it brings benignity and serenity as it gives life to that area, as embodied in the phrase “the spirit of the woods,” in which a spirit occupies and animates a woodland area.

Spiritual sensation is a gradient scale — from creative and lofty heights at the top, down to destruction and degradation at the bottom. For someone somewhere in the middle or bottom of that scale, it may be hard to imagine the delight of someone at the top.

The highest level of spiritual sensation is aesthetics, and beauty is a consideration of aesthetics. Unfortunately, psychiatry denies the beauty in all of us.

Much of humanity, while trying to reach an exalted height of sensation, beauty and emotion, only gets as high as the taste of beer and an orgasm. But much of that degradation is due to the suppressive influence of psychiatry.

Psychiatry Attacks Aesthetics

Psychiatrist Oscar Janiger (1918-2001) lured hundreds of writers, musicians, actors and filmmakers into taking the hallucinogen LSD, with promises of “vivid aesthetic perceptions” that would lead them to a “greater appreciation of the arts” and enhanced creativity. We know now that this was truly a hallucination.

Medical studies rapidly showed that LSD could induce a psychotic psychedelic experience characterized by intense fear to the point of panic, paranoid delusions of suspicion or grandeur, toxic confusion, and depersonalization. LSD induced the very “madness” psychiatrists claimed to be able to cure. Many artists and others found their lives and careers devastated under the weight of these delusions and the accompanying depersonalization so deliberately promoted by psychiatry.

Now, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) contains thirty hallucinogen-related diagnoses for which psychiatrists can prescribe harmful and addictive psychotropic drugs. Psychiatry first created the problems they then falsely claimed to be able to treat.

Psychiatry Attacks the Creative Mind

For years, psychiatrists have labeled the creative mind as a “mental disorder,” mischaracterizing an artist’s “feverish brilliance” as a manic phase of craziness, or melancholic performances as depression. Vision was redefined as hallucination.

Psychiatrists notoriously and falsely “diagnosed” the creative mind as a “mental disorder,” invalidating the artist’s abilities as “neurosis.” They lectured on the supposedly thin line dividing madness and sanity. Yet the artist is far superior to psychiatry’s materialistic and authoritarian “science” that can blunt the creative mind by redefining it as “madness.”

Some of the artists harmed by psychiatry were Marilyn Monroe, Vivien Leigh, Judy Garland, Ernest Hemingway, Frances Farmer, Billie Holiday, Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys), and Kurt Cobain.

It’s not only that creativity is attacked by psychiatry, but also intelligence. The psychiatric industry has a history of deliberately reducing their patient’s intelligence, further harming their creativity. Evidence exists that both electroshock and marijuana lower IQ, and both are heavily promoted as “treatments” by psychiatry.

Recommendations

Normal people have problems that can and must be resolved without recourse to psychiatric drugs or other harmful psychiatric methods. Deceiving and drugging is not the practice of medicine. It is criminal.

People in desperate circumstances must be provided proper non-psychiatric care. Sound medical attention, good nutrition, a healthy, safe environment and activity that promotes confidence, will do far more for a troubled person than repeated drugging, shocks and other psychiatric abuses designed to stifle the spiritual creative impulse.

My psychiatrist said nothing about side effects!

Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out, Psych Out

Monday, October 19th, 2020

Over the last few years there has been a surge of interest and media in using psychedelics as psychiatric drugs to “treat” so-called “mental illness.” Need we actually say that this is an insanely bad idea?

For example, psychiatrists have been demanding funds for research using LSD,psilocybin (magic mushroom), MDMA (Ecstasy), marijuana,ketamine and kratom.

Even if psychedelic drugs are administered to consenting subjects, such research demonstrates a fundamental disregard for human life because of the drugs’ mind-altering properties, born out by the psychiatric-intelligence community’s past research of LSD, psilocybin and amphetamines. Not only does psychedelic drug abuse endanger one’s health, but also one’s learning rate, attitudes, personality and overall mental acuity.

Thirty-two million people in the US are reported users of psychedelic drugs, while reports of riots, violence, suicide, and psychotic behavior are rising.

Apparently enough time has passed that the public has forgotten what happened when psychedelics gained notoriety in the 1960s, when LSD pushed by psychiatrists spread into society as a recreational drug and started destroying lives with induced psychosis. Even the psychiatric billing bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), lists various forms of “hallucinogen intoxication” as a mental disorder so that psychiatrists can make a buck from “treating” it.

The long history of psychiatry’s attempts to promote psychedelics should give us additional clues to their harm. In the last 150 years, psychiatry has been unable to justify any cures using psychedelics. In the 1840’s French psychiatrist Jacques-Joseph Moreau promoted marijuana as a medicine. Psychedelic drugs were studied for mental health conditions in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) was founded in 1986 by Rick Doblin specifically to promote marijuana and psychedelics as “medicines” after his experiments using psychedelic drugs to catalyze religious experiences. In 1992, Australian psychiatrists called for heroin, cocaine and marijuana to be sold legally in liquor stores. Today, psychiatrists are embracing all things marijuana because they are getting so many patients with marijuana-related problems such as addiction and psychosis.

A surge of interest in “repurposing” psychiatric drugs for other uses has also surfaced. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis announced they have launched a clinical trial in patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 but who are not sick enough to be hospitalized. The trial is investigating whether the antidepressant fluvoxamine (Luvox)–a drug linked to the Columbine High School shooting in 1999–can be repurposed for COVID-19.

The facts show psychedelics can trigger rage, violence, aggression, and precipitate various mental disorders. Whether given in a clinical setting or illegally abused, the drugs can have harmful outcomes and have no use in the mental health field.

Contact your local, state and federal officials. Let them know what you think about this, and encourage them not to fund psychedelic research.